EMILY NORMAN
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Masterton’s Karn Waiwai is about to take a leap of faith – in fact, a gruelling mile-long leap of faith that would push even the fittest person to their physical limit.
The former Navy Ships diver turned fitness trainer is set to embark on a ‘Burpee Mile’ through the centre of Masterton to raise money to sponsor his Christian mission to the slums of Mexico.
The Burpee Mile is a course of burpee broad jumps – “that means dropping down to your tummy and then pressing up, and as you come up you jump forwards.”
Then repeat for 1.6km.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Mr Waiwai said.
He will start at the Kuripuni Village stop sign at 5am on Friday September 1, and will press-up and leap all the way to the town library on Queen St.
“I haven’t done the burpee mile, but I’ve always wanted to do it.
“It always came down to the fact that I wasn’t ready yet, and I really needed a reason to.
“This fundraiser gave me that motivation to do it.”
Mr Waiwai will be joining more than a dozen others from Soulway Church in Masterton, in conjunction with Breakfree Expeditions, to build houses and deliver care packages to prisoners in Mexico.
“Soulway Church did this a few years ago,” he said.
“When they said they were going to do another one, I put my hand up straight away and said, ‘Yeah I’m going on that’.
“I felt in my heart that the Lord was calling me to do that.”
Mr Waiwai, who runs Karnage X-Fitness on Cricket St, became a Christian three years ago and said it helped transform him “from the inside out”.
It will be his first ever mission, and first trip to Mexico.
“I’m ex-Navy so I’ve travelled a lot to the Islands and Australia, and I’ve done peacekeeping too over in the Solomon Islands.
“But I’m really looking forward to this trip – just to give back to God’s people and love and care for them is a good thing for my heart.”
Mr Waiwai said the closest he had ever come to doing a burpee mile was 400m, which took him 30 minutes.
“I’m trying to do it in under an hour so I can finish there and go and do a workout straight after.
“I’ve done a 24-hour CrossFit challenge over in Mount Maunganui . . . working out over 24 hours doing 17 different workouts through the night with no sleep.
“I can handle 1.6km of burpee broad jumps.”
He invites those willing to sponsor his Mexico trip to follow his Facebook page – Karnage X-Fitness – for details.
Soulway Church’s last trip was in 2010, and its pastor, Rik Edmonds, was part of instigating the project in its beginnings.
This year celebrates 10 years of Breakfree Expeditions going over to Mexico for house-building projects.
